NEW ORLEANS — The first positive sign: No one gave an on-court interview after Monday’s game in New Orleans Arena about how great it is to be in the second round. Sorry T-Mac.

But the Nuggets are 48 minutes away.

I asked Kenyon Martin when the last time he played in a closeout game was. He scratched his head.

“Ummm…” he said. “This is my fifth year here? It’s been a long time. Been a looong time.”

For Martin, that answer is April 25, 2004; just over five calendar years ago. Then, his New Jersey Nets finished a sweep of the New York Knicks. He has not one a playoff series since.

For Carmelo Anthony, if the Nuggets win Wednesday night, it will be his first series win. Ever. You can almost cut the excitement in the air with a knife when he talks about it. A win stops the can’t-get-out-of-the-first-round criticism, which in his view has arguably been the most biting of all the things his detractors have said about him.

Forty-eight minutes.

“Yeah, I’m excited. I’m excited man,” Anthony said. “I don’t want to get too excited. Good thing is we stole one here on the road and get a chance to go home in front of our crowd and close it out.”

The Hornets, down 3-1, appear to be done. They didn’t even practice on Tuesday, instead opting to convene, board the plane and come to Denver for Game 5. They are battered in body and spirit. Anthony knows the feeling.

“I’ve been in this situation before, down 3-1, especially going into someone else’s home court,” he said. “But the tables are turned now. I get a chance to go home and close it out. As a team we’re excited about that opportunity.”

The fact is, as much credit as Chauncey Billups deserves for teaching the Nuggets how to win in the playoffs, Anthony must be praised for a series in which his play grew stronger every game.

Game 1: 13 points (4-of-12 shooting), seven rebounds, two assists.

Game 2: 22 points (10-of-20), three rebounds, nine assists.

Game 3: 25 points (10-of-24), eight rebounds, five assists.

Game 4: 26 points (9-of-17), six rebounds, seven assists.

He has played to the standard everyone expected and beyond. His series as a playmaker has been remarkable. He’s averaged 5.75 assists and has made near flawless decisions with the basketball in combating what the defense has shown him, particularly in double-teams. His game is maturing. His team is winning.

And largely because of him, it’s close-out time. The Nuggets haven’t had a closeout game since the franchise defeated its current coach – George Karl – in Game 5 of the 1994 first round series against the heavily-favored Seattle Sonics.

And though the Hornets have been blitzed in three of the four games, losing by an average of 34 points per game, no one expects getting the fourth win to be anything but hard work.

“We’re not going to get big-headed about it,” Martin said. “I’m expecting we’ll come out and play hard.”

“It’s going to be tough to closeout that game,” guard Anthony Carter said. “But we’re at home and the fans are looking forward to it, and we’re going to need each and every one of them out there on Wednesday. They haven’t seen the Nuggets make it to the second round in 20 years or 25 years or however long it’s been. It’ll just be something special for us to close it out on our home court and give something back to the fans that they haven’t seen in a while – but we just gotta make sure we do it.”

Chris Dempsey: 303-954-1279 or cdempsey@denverpost.com

Here’s a really cool look at how playoff teams who lost by the biggest margins in NBA history fared in their next game. This was compiled by the Post’s NBA editor, Dave Krause.

Minneapolis 133, vs. St. Louis 75, 1956

Next game: St. Louis won 116-115 at Minneapolis to win the best-of-three series in the 1956 Western Conference semifinals.

L.A. Lakers, 126 at Golden State, 70, 1973

Next game: Golden State won 117-109 at home against the Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals.

Milwaukee 136, vs. San Francisco 86, 1971

Next game: San Francisco lost the last game of the Western Conference semifinals; franchise changed its name to the Golden State Warriors the following season and won the 1971-72 opener at Boston, 97-75.

But never, ever, have the Nuggets been mistaken for the team you’d better sharpen your elbows to face.

But wait. Now, it is.

My, how things change.

I’ve covered the opposition’s angle this series, and the questions to Hornets players are amazing. They are constantly peppered with queries about their intestinal fortitude. It took exactly one game for coach Byron Scott to call Nuggets guard Dahntay Jones’s defensive tactics “dirty.” Jones has been in the Hornets’ heads ever since.

Some talk of tempered retaliation.

“We have to adjust to the game,” Hornets forward James Posey said. “You have to pick your spots to be physical. You don’t want to do anything too crazy out there. You don’t want to foul for the sake of fouling. But you still have to hold your ground and play basketball.”

Some say the Nuggets aren’t different at all.

“They are a big, strong team. They’ve played like that all year,” Hornets forward David West said. “They haven’t necessarily changed anything in that regard. It’s just the way that they are conditioned to play.”

Kenyon Martin lays down the hard fouls. Chris Andersen rolls through the paint like a bowling ball to rebound and block shots. Chauncey Billups gives extra emphasis when clearing out his path to the rim. Carmelo Anthony battles on the block. The only player seemingly not down with the program is the happy-go-lucky, always smiling, Nene. And even he’s a physical presence when he takes the ball to the rim.

Coach George Karl has said a nasty team is a team crafted in his image. Well, these guys might as well all be wearing Karl Halloween masks. Trust me when I tell you, he’s laughing behind the scenes and telling his guys to keep it up.

But just two years ago, Karl was Scott. Bowen was Jones. Ginobili was Martin, minus the flops. The Spurs knocked the Nuggets around like pinballs, they chuckled through it all, and all the Nuggets could do was complain about it.

But no more.

It’s part of the reason why this year’s Nuggets team is so unusual. But it’s been unusual good, for them. Records have been broken, expectations have been altered, and some imaginations can see the Nuggets in the NBA Finals.

But before anyone gets ahead of themselves on that front, they should sit back and enjoy this show. The Nuggets are playing playoff caliber basketball. Extra bumping, extra grinding and emphatically laying the smack down are all part of it. Bring your elbows or go home.

How long this lasts, I don’t know.

But the Nuggets, as Monsters of the Mile High City, sure are fun to watch while it does.

The all-star starters will be announced later today. The all-star reserves will be announced Thursday, Feb. 1.

Will Carmelo Anthony (pictured) be among them? While the Western Conference is loaded at the forward position, The Denver Post’s Chris Dempsey touches on what might improve Melo’s chances of making the all-star roster in today’s new installment of the Nuggets Mailbag.Read more…

If you logged on to DenverPost.com’s Live Chat Page today at 2 p.m., you caught The Post’s NBA reporter Marc J. Spears. From Carmelo’s return after a suspension to Allen Iverson’s initial impact to the Nuggets’ season so far, Spears provided an insider’s perspective to your NBA questions.

Have a question about the Denver Nuggets or the National Basketball Association? Chris Dempsey has some answers.

The Denver Post’s Nuggets writer will field the most engaging, the most insightful and the most entertaining questions in his very own Nuggets Mailbag. A part of DenverPost.com’s Mailbag series since March 2003, the Nuggets Mailbag runs each Thursday through the remainder of this season.Read more…

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.

Nicki Jhabvala is the Sports Digital News Editor for The Denver Post. Before arriving in Denver, she spent five years at Sports Illustrated working primarily as its online NBA editor, and she was most recently the overnight home page editor at the New York Times.